Shambhavi riffs about the recognition that God is everywhere and the difference between ordinary and awake health and romance. A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi
First Words from the Podcast
I didn’t prepare anything to talk about. So you tell me what you want me to talk about. Start me up!
“Romance.” Romance? Is that a real topic? “What could you say about everything being God?”
Well, I’ll say one thing about romance first. The most effective teacher-student relationships include romance, in the bigger sense—not sexual romance necessarily. You meant sexual romance? I’m playing with you.
You know, romance includes a sense of magic. There has to be a sense of something magical happening just naturally, no one can manufacture that. When you’re in love with somebody there’s a certain way you look forward to seeing them. You’re excited to just go do the laundry with them or something—even if you normally hate doing the laundry. There’s just a sense of—ah! I don’t know what’s going to happen.
On one level ordinary romance is the most conventional thing. It’s usually incredibly banal. But on an other level, there’s a time even in ordinary romance where people feel like something different is happening. In a sense, even though it’s wrapped and shrouded in utter convention and all of this pressure, there’s another aspect of it that’s surprising. So, the romance with the teacher is all that without the monotony. If the teacher doesn’t poke holes at, poke fun of, and exceed your expectations, overflow them—then that’s not working either.
Now about everything being God—you have to have that experience. That’s what the practices are for—to help you to have that. You can have that experience just sitting in satsang. You can have that experience walking down the street or going for a walk in nature. You can have that experience doing your sadhana. There’s many ways you can begin to get that. You can have that experience in the sandhis at the beginning and the end of every breath. Realizing that everything is God is a precursor to realizing that you are that, too.
